I don't know why I didn't check these forums earlier, as we've been struggling with chronic stuffy nose in one of our guinea pigs as well. Fergie is about 6.5 years old now, and for the past year it has been on/off again. Stuffy for a few minutes, hours, or days, then clear sometimes for weeks at a time. About 6 months ago it became more constant. At this point I can't recall the last time she had a full day of clear breathing. We've had repeated rounds of vet appointments, listening to heart and lungs, a few tries of antibiotics, etc. So far nothing has changed it. I take her in about every 3 months just to verify she's still good and I think the vet might consider me slightly crazy but it's worth it for my girl.

Our vet did a nasal flush, similar to a human netty pot, which made her sneeze quite a bit and temporarily (for 2 days or so) give her clear breathing. But it came right back. We've changed hay, take her into the bathroom with us when we shower to act as a humidifier, and other things. She has a good appetite and is fairly normal otherwise. She sleeps a lot lately, but I am not sure if that is related to the stuffy nose, or just age. And she sleeps hard - almost like she's dead and sometimes gives me a scare, ha! As a note we use fleece & u-haul bedding, KMS pellets and orchard grass or timothy hay. We switched to orchard grass to reduce my husband's allergies, but it had no impact on Fergie's nose.

She hasn't had very labored breathing where it is too worrisome, but it is definitely audible anywhere within our bedroom or the guest room nearby. It is really concerning, but the vet has given her a clean bill of health over and over again. I worry about her all the time and I know we shouldn't admit favorites, but she is definitely the coolest guinea pig I've ever had and is just that special pig to me so..yeah...she's my favorite though I love her cage mates very dearly as well!

I will check back on this thread and see if anyone ever does have a stroke of genius and figure something out, or share our updates if we find something that helps.

Has the vet identified the obstruction that makes her seem stuffy as a nasal discharge? I understand it is possible to stick a swab in the nasal passage ways to identify it. Have you tried any antihistamines?

Why, why, why are they so reluctant to consider heart issues?! Especially in an older animal, after every antibiotic and antihistamine has done nothing. I have had two older pigs whose quality of life (ease of breathing--of course, but also higher activity level, weight gain) was vastly improved by furosemide (Lasix). I wish I'd known to push for it in a couple of others.

My vet did an ultrasound of the heart, which in both cases showed fluid. One had an enlarged heart as well. Congestive heart failure. It's really common, just as it is in older humans.

Yes, Dr. Nathan at Sharon Center is open to considering heart issues and I’m sure he’ll work with you. I went to him after another vet refused to consider heart issues without doing an echocardiogram after my Fluffy was showing classic signs of a heart condition. Dr. Nathan said his son’s guinea pig died from cardiomyopathy so he has personal experience that heart issues do exist in guinea pigs. I’m sure he will consider a trial of heart meds.

We live in CA so we can't get to OH or other states unfortunately. We have done a swab, and x-rays. We haven't done antihistamines. We have a vet appointment tomorrow for another guinea pig and are taking Fergie in for a quick check as well since we'll be there. I will ask about antihistamines. Our vet, Dr. Nakamura at Adobe Animal Hospital in Los Gatos, CA, is well known and treats several other piggies with heart issues, including my friends. I asked him about it early in the process but will bring it up again. She does sometimes improve after doing a nasal flush but only for a few hours or a couple of days. After the antibiotics she was much better for a little while, and she wasn't sleeping as heavily. But she's been a bit sleepy the past two weeks and her weight has bounced around so we're taking her in for a check up again. Why do they have to worry us so much?!

I kept thinking about the heart question during my meetings so I called the vet to verify, and we did do chest x-rays in June but nothing turned up, he said Fergie seemed really healthy. So we did antibiotics just in case, and she did improve a bit for a couple of weeks. Since then, over the past 2 months, it's been a slow decline in her activity levels and she is slowly starting to sleep more heavily again. Sometimes I brush her cheeks with my fingers 2-3 times before she wakes up with a start. So we have another appointment set up to see. Unfortunately they can't fit both my piggies in tomorrow (cage mate Astrid developed a HUGE bump on her face between her right eye and right ear, practically overnight, so we are going in tomorrow morning - so far no impact on breathing, eye, appetite, activity, poops, etc. and doesn't seem painful when I touch or squeeze the mass). So Astrid goes tomorrow, I'll take Fergie in next week when they have another open appointment.

I've done a bit of research today and see the meds frequently used. I also saw that heart conditions can be a bit tricky to diagnose, that the heart isn’t always enlarged enough to see on the x-rays so you diagnose via multiple avenues. What I haven’t really seen, and am wondering if anyone has input, is whether you can “test” the heart meds? For example in June Dr. Nakamura put Fergie on antibiotics just to see if it helped due to the ongoing recurring congestion. It did seem to help for a couple of weeks, but now that it’s back and intermittent (versus a persistent stuffy nose that I would expect for a URI, and it doesn’t spread to any other guineas), I am wondering if it is heart after all. And if it’s more minor and thus harder to diagnose, can we “test” the heart meds? Or are they dangerous and thus, like human heart medication, too dangerous to take unless you have a known heart condition?

I will ask my vet as well, obviously, but curious if anyone is aware of any thread, topics, research points that I should look at ahead of that appointment on Sept 6th to educate myself and ask the right questions when at the vet?

Dr. Nakamura is great! If he was your vet, I'll bet he would be fine with testing out heart meds and trying to fine tune them. Consider also having your current vet consult with another vet or go online to vin.com.

Ditto Lynx. Yes, "testing out" heart medication based upon clinical sign is not only possible but quite common.

In my opinion only ask Dr. N. (known to us as Naka-san :-) to start with benazepril. It is a relatively benign ACE inhibitor with a significantly less harsh side effect profile than its predecessor, enalapril.

In my experience, begin at 1/4 dosing and increase in 10-15% increments. Most of our heart pigs have stabilized at one-half the dosing recommended on that page. A few have needed the full dose, plus furosemide, plus pimobendan (Vetmedin), but that's down the road. Heart meds are an ongoing combo-tweak process, but they're usually very well tolerated and we have had pigs on them successfully for months or even years, just like humans.

Great, thanks so much! On the one hand I hope I get a diagnosis so I can ease my mind, and yet on the other hand obviously hope she's 100% healthy on her own. But my intuition just keeps saying that she's not quite right....So we'll see what Nakamura says this upcoming week.

At the vet appointment Dr. Nakamura did a heart ultrasound and found no fluid around the heart. He listened to her lungs and she seemed OK other than the nose rattle she has going on. He didn't do another x-ray but he did flush her nose with a syringe of saline, caught it, and is running a culture. We should have the results tomorrow.

Her cage mate Astrid also went in for biopsy on a huge lump on her face (between her right eye and ear) and we also get those results on Wednesday. It's been busy times at our house the past two weeks, sheesh!

Hello, I am curious to see how this all worked out for you- I have a guinea pig who seems to do the exact same "hooting" your piggy does. Ever since we adopted Roxy a few years ago she has been noisy. It usually only happens for a little bit at a time, once every couple months or so, sometimes more. Although now I am a lot more worried about it as to the fact that I lost my darling Ginny earlier this year to a URI/pneumonia. It comforts me to know that you're going through the same thing and your piggy seems overall fine, although I'd definitely like to hear how this whole thing worked out and if you have any recommendations. Roxy has done this on and off for a while, she's does it mostly in the morning or when she's eating her pellets. Her weight has been steady and she has a normal appetite and activity level. We have had her checked out by the vet and he has never found anything too concerning. I can't help but get so worried over her "hooting", though! i just don't want to miss any signs, but it's hard because I'm worried I'm overreacting and this is just what she does occasionally.

Hello, I am curious to see how this all worked out for you- I have a guinea pig who seems to do the exact same "hooting" your piggy does. Ever since we adopted Roxy a few years ago she has been noisy. It usually only happens for a little bit at a time, once every couple months or so, sometimes more. Although now I am a lot more worried about it as to the fact that I lost my darling Ginny earlier this year to a URI/pneumonia. It comforts me to know that you're going through the same thing and your piggy seems overall fine, although I'd definitely like to hear how this whole thing worked out and if you have any recommendations. Roxy has done this on and off for a while, she's does it mostly in the morning or when she's eating her pellets. Her weight has been steady and she has a normal appetite and activity level. We have had her checked out by the vet and he has never found anything too concerning. I can't help but get so worried over her "hooting", though! i just don't want to miss any signs, but it's hard because I'm worried I'm overreacting and this is just what she does occasionally.

Hi 4Piggies - sorry for not replying! I opened a Fergie-specific medical thread rather than responding on this one and didn't link over. She has had a multitude of issues since then, unfortunately. Here is the new thread: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=74897

I am not sure if she had pneumonia the entire time and it was a case of oversight, despite repeatedly bringing up her energy levels and breathing concerns, but during a case of bloat we did x-rays to check that and to check her lungs becuase her breathing became even more labored. They saw her lungs were "gunky" and prescribed 10 days Baytril. At the end of the 10 days she was certainly not improved, perhaps worse, so we headed in again and they switched her to TMS. We were told 3 weeks to really see much improvement, but I see others on here with some positive turnaround in 24-48 hours. I have an email into the vet, as it's been a week, because I just don't want this to get worse. She is ~25% lung capacity right now and scary. But she's alert when she interacts with me, just rather lethargic and puffy when I am not directly interacting.

It's been really hard, but she keeps eating a little on her own and doesn't seem ready to say goodbye, so we keep fighting....